Dear Diary
by Blue Seidr
Summary: A leather-bound journal with a blue cover sits wedged behind a bookshelf. The spine has cracked in several places, and a yin-yang sign had been painted on the front, along with Japanese symbols. This is Leonardo's journal. (A collection of pieces about Leo's thoughts, emotions, and spirit. Drabbles. K plus for safety)
1. Who I Am, Who Am I

**This is the start of a drabble series. It will not be a real story. It is simply a collection of dribbles of when I feel the need to jump into Leo's head. Which, honestly, is quite often. I hope you enjoy this first entry.**

_Dear Diary,_

_Have you ever not known who you are? Not a lack of knowing your name, but knowing who you are. I know my name is Leonardo, but, who is Leonardo, really? According to Raph, I'm a pain in the shell, a bossy leader, and Fearless. According to Donnie, I'm a stubborn leader, OCD, and nosy. According to Mikey, I'm a stick in the mud, overprotective, and a horrible cook. According to Sensei, I'm a leader, a pupil of ninjitsu, and responsible._

_So what is it? Some of them? All of them? None of them, even? If so, then who am I? Who is Leonardo?_

_I hope that in these pages, I may be able to find him._

_I'd like to think I'm a leader. It's a title that's both an honor and a burden. It touches me that my sensei believes I'm capable of such a huge responsibility, but sometimes, it feels like the weight of that responsibility is going to crush me, and I wish Sensei had never given me the rank._

_I know I am overprotective. I've always been, but I've grown even more so since becoming leader. Perhaps because I feel the wrath of every cut and bruise my brother's obtain. As leader, I'm responsible for keeping them safe, so when I fail, it hits me hard. So I wish to avoid them getting hurt. Is that a crime? Same with OCD and my "nosiness". It all stems from wanting to keep my brothers safe. I hate when things spiral out of my control. When that happens, my brother's get hurt. I need control in my life, to know I'm in charge and can steer my brother's and I. That I can control it all and keep them safe. A part of me knows I cannot control life itself. But another part of me continues to try in vain._

_I feel like I've begun to ramble, but I guess that's okay. This is my diary. I can say whatever I wish to, because I am the only person who will ever see it. So I can ramble all I want to._

_My brother's nickname for me is Fearless. Every time I hear it, I both laugh and cry on the inside. The nickname is so laughable to me. I am not fearless. I would bet I'm the most fearful of us all. I stress constantly, and fear for my brother's health and life every moment of my life. How can someone like me be fearless? I cry inside as well, because I feel so guilty my brother's seem to think of me as fearless. I feel I have portrayed the image of a hero who will always be able to stay cool and laugh in the face of danger. That is so far from the truth, and my brother's may have to find that out someday, and it makes me feel like I have let them down by not living up to my legacy as the Fearless Leader. So Fearless? Nothing could be less true._

_I believe that I am overprotective, and OCD, and I hope I am a leader. But, are those titles and labels really me? Is that all I am? A control freak and overprotective leader? Is that all there is to Leonardo?_

_Who is Leonardo? Who am I? According to me . . ._

_I am the eldest brother (yet another label). I love my family, and would die to keep them safe. I hate to cook, and suck at it anyway. I like to read, to write, to draw and paint, and listen to music. I love the feeling of cool air against my skin as I run across rooftops. I have a fear of failing my family, and I'm not too comfortable with being in photos. My favorite color is blue, and after that, black. I secretly love the Harry Potter movies and books._

_Is that who I am? A reader, writer, painter, runner, failing-fearer, Harry Potter-lover?_

_I don't know. I don't know who I am. What's makes a person them, anyway? Their personality? Their likes and dislikes? Their attitude? Their past? Or do all of them make a person?_

_I don't know who I am. Maybe one day, I can look back at this and answer this question. Or maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll find the answer in these pages of honesty. I would like that._

_Sayonara for now, my companion._

_- Leonardo_


	2. Mask of the Fearless Leader

_Dear Diary,_

_I look in the mirror, and stare at my face. I don't recognize it. The face that looks back at me is mine, yet it's not mine. My eyes are large blue, but I see narrowed gray. My mouth is a wide grin, but I see a grim slash. My face is open and soft, but my reflection's is guarded and hard._

_I'm wearing a mask of stone, a defense against the world. I try to take the mask off, but I can't. The mask has become part of me, and I can't pry it off. It's like a second skin._

_Sometimes, the mask will crack, and I can see my blue eyes and wide smile. But then the cracks will repair themselves, be filled in again, and my mask is firmly in place again._

_I don't like my stone mask. It may be a defense against the world, but it is also a prison, hiding me from the world. The world sees my mask, the cold, hard, passive gaze, and they don't see me behind it. I'm trapped beneath the mask. The mask of Fearless Leader, and Leonardo hidden beneath._

_Perhaps my mask is why I struggle with finding my identity, with knowing who I am._

_I have a cover, a layer, a barrier, the appearance of the Fearless Leader. Inside, at the core, I am Leonardo. But the core is small, and buried deep. Too often, I play the part my mask casts upon me, and the mask is a fake. Most of me is fake, the Fearless Leader. How can I truly know who I am? How can I be Leonardo, when I wear the mask of Fearless Leader? How can I know who I am at the center, who I am when I am laid bare from masks, burdens, and responsibilities, if I always wear the mask?_

_I yearn to take it off, to strip away the hardness in my gaze. But I cannot. My role has been cast in this play, and it is that of the leader. I must continue to play my part. But I'm afraid. If I continue to submerge myself into this role, will I become the role I play? Will Leonardo be buried so deep he is no more? All that's left fake?_

_If I could, I would recast myself. I'd like to play myself for once in my life. I want to break the stone mask and show my real face to the world._

_How can I do that, though? My brothers need Fearless Leader more than they need Leonardo. They need me to play my part and make the decisions, take responsibility. _

_I have to wear this mask, the mask that looks like me but is sharper, harder, harsher. It defines me, and protects me. But I don't like it. I'd rather show my true face, hidden away deep inside._

_It is my duty to wear the weathered mask of Fearless Leader, carved from my choices and experience. I just hope that Leonardo will survive, hidden beneath the rocky surface._

_Sayonara for now,_

_Leonardo_


	3. Training To Be A Protector

_Dear Diary,_

_Today I got into another fight with Raph, and it was the worse kind. The kind where the accusations are true. _

_When the accusations are true, you can't defend yourself. You can't say that your opponent is wrong, because they aren't. You can't brush away their pointed statements, because their aim is true. You can't prove them wrong, you can only try to justify your actions. And often, they will not listen to you, or say that you were misguided and wrong._

_Today's fight was one of those fights, the ones that settle beneath your skin and burrow into your heart, because you know they are right. Yet you can not abandon your guns, so you do your best to convince yourself that _you _are right, and you fight back._

_This feud, Raph accused me of never being around, of always training. He said I never do anything with them anymore. He said that I train non-stop, that I always deny having any fun or cutting loose, that I even try to take away fun from them too. He said I act like it would kill me to "take time out of acting like the superior, perfect son" to be with him and Donnie and Mikey._

_He spat the word perfect at me like it was dirty, a curse and an insult._

_I fought back. I denied it all. _

_I don't know if I'm right._

_I mean, I know I'm right about my intentions. I love my brothers with my entire soul. I love them so much it hurts. I do not see myself superior in any way. If anything, they are superior to me. _

_I certainly do not see myself as perfect either. Everyday I am reminded about how flawed I am. All I have to do is look in the mirror, or at one of my brothers. We all carry scars that show any onlooker of failures in battle, failures I could have prevented had I been better. Had I been smarter, or faster, or braver, I could have saved our family so much pain._

_So Raph's claims of my intentions are completely false, and I can rest easy knowing that I was not lying when I protested them. But his claims of my _actions_ . . . Those are not so easily waved away._

_Yesterday, I woke up, I trained alone, I ate breakfast, I trained with my brothers, then trained alone again, then meditated until lunch. After that, I meditated a while longer, trained, watched a half hour of TV and read for another hour, then trained until dinner, after which I turned in early to read some more before patrol. After patrol, I read myself to sleep._

_The majority of my day was training, training alone._

_After my fight with Raph, we went our separate ways, Raph to the surface, and me to my room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Donnie and Mikey poke their heads out of hiding places, where they had obviously eavesdropped on out argument. Well, maybe not eavesdropped. People in Jersey probably could've heard our shouts. When I had reached my room, I had simply laid down on my bed and tried to process yet another fight. I must have laid there for who knows how long before rolling to my feet and pulling out this journal, my favorite release for my emotions._

_I'm so afraid that Raph is right. I do spend most of my free time training, and when I'm not training, I'm usually doing solitary activities. I can't help _that_ though. I'm a solitary person. I like to read and to watch a little TV, to be alone (but not lonely). I retreat to my room and let my emotions remain confined, let them swirl around me and me alone, while Raph hangs them out for everyone to see, usually in a destructive rampage (heaven help anyone who gets in his way)._

_But I do train far more than necessary for my brothers. Nearly every spare moment of mine is used to train, to prepare for battle. I set time away for reading and a couple other things, but not much in comparison to my brothers relaxation time. Every minute of my day I have planned. Rarely does that plan include my brothers._

_I try to remember the last time I purposely hung out with them, did something with them as their brother, not their leader. It shames me that I cannot remember. I have immersed myself in my training, practicing harder and longer, and that time has been stolen from time spent with my brothers. As I devote myself to the way of the ninja, I forget my everyday duties as a brother._

_Guilt is eating away at me, from the inside out. Raph's words are echoing in my mind, piercing my heart and filling me with their venom. They are true. Completely and totally true. But not for the reason Raph thinks they are._

_Raph seems to believe I train out of some desire to be the perfect son, to show them up. That I see myself as above them. But that could not be more false. If anything, they are above me. They don't have to work to be brilliant at what they do. They are so gifted, their talents come so naturally to them. I must work harder than anyone else to do what I can. Mikey is so athletically gifted. He's a natural, so much raw potential. Donnie is a genius, ideas coming to him with every breath he takes. He would be world famous if he were human, winning awards and creating inventions to save the world and everyone in it. And Raph . . . He's so strong and stubborn, he can do anything when he puts his mind to it. He's so passionate about everything. __Me? I am average. I am the best at ninjitsu, but I have to work at it, struggle every step of the way to make it look as effortless as I do._

_Why, then, do I devote such time to it? I do it for my brothers. _

_I am the leader, and I am the eldest. It is my duty to protect them with every breath, to keep them safe to my last moment. To protect them, I have to be my best. I have to be _the _best. I have to do everything I can so that when our enemies strike, I can strike back harder, and defend my brothers. If anything happened to them . . . . I would never be able to forgive myself. If it means sacrificing myself both in life and death, so be it. I _will_ protect my brothers._

_I haven't realized until now just how much I've been shutting my brothers out in the process. __Because I have to train so much to stay at the top of my game, I steal time that should be used for being with my brothers._

_I knew I was willing to sacrifice myself, but my bond with my brothers . . . . That should never be sacrificed._

_I just can't help it, though. I need to be able to protect my brothers against the world. How can I do that without my ninjitsu? Without my skill as a ninja, I'm useless to them, and they could pay for my weakness with their lives. I have to become strong, to keep them safe._

_Raphael doesn't see it that way, though. He doesn't understand why I train every spare moment. It's not out of some twisted sense of superiority or being a suck-up. It's for _him._ And for Donnie, and Mikey, and even April and Casey. I have been cast as the leader, and I must live up to the role. I can not fail at this. I_ can't._ I must be able to keep my team safe, to keep my family safe. _

_I have known this for a long time now, since we first encountered the Kraang and the Foot. I have been doing what I thought was right, what I had thought was the only way to keep my family safe. Even now, I know that I have to train all I can. But . . ._

_But Raph's words ring true. I can not continue to shut myself away from my brothers, to ignore them in favor of constant training. I may be willing to sacrifice myself for the team, but I don't think - I _hope_ - the team isnt willing to sacrifice me. I need to be with them for more than just training, patrol and meals. Is there a point to being their brother if I never act like it in daily life?_

_From this point forward, I will make more of an effort to be with my brothers, to relax with them, to talk with them. Mind you, I will continue training rigorously. No matter what Raph may say, my training is important, and I must not be allowed to slack, or they may pay for it. But I will ease a little, and try to be a better brother to my family. Not just the leader I am trying to become._

_I will start this very moment._

_Sayonara for now,_

_Leonardo_


	4. Fear Conquers All

_Dear Diary,_

_I am sitting in the farthest corner of my room. The lights are on the lowest setting possible without it being visible outside my door, my door is closed and locked, and my blankets for my bed are wrapped around my shoulders like a cloak. It is the middle of the night for us, and we should all be fast asleep. In fact, I'm almost certain my brothers are. But I am not, nor have I even attempted to do so tonight._

_It has been one week since our encounter with the fear-inducing mushrooms. While the first couple of days my brothers, Casey, and April looked tired and haunted by their visions, by now they all looked recovered, like they have shaken off the nightmarish scenes._

_Me? I am not so easily calmed. If anything, I'm even more terrified then I was during the actual vision. My nightmares have not fled, despite the facing of my fear when I overcame the drug. In fact, they have only grown even more frightening, more realistic, and even more frequent. I'm afraid to go to sleep at night now, because I fear the demons that will awake when I fall asleep._

_Every night, the visions leek into my brain, and I am forced to watch my brothers turn their backs on me, and listen to them chant about how I failed them, how they are all dead because of me. Their voices swirl around me, becoming louder and louder until they drown out my own thoughts, my heart pounding a dreadful taboo to their accusations._

_Then, I watch them all fall to a katana blade that bears a sickening resemblance to my own. I watch them die around me, and I can't move, or speak, or do anything but watch in horror. Then their bodies fade away, and I am overcome with darkness. I can't feel or see or hear anything. It's vast darkness in every direction. I can't even see or feel my own body. For all I know, I do not exist. I am alone. All alone._

_The torture of the non-existence feeling lasts for what feels like hours, then I am jolted awake to find that barely an hour has past._

_My two biggest fears in one horrible nightmare, one that grows worse every time I am forced to witness it. My fear of failing my brothers, my family, and my fear of being alone and forgotten._

_I am unable to shrug them off like my brothers, to forget or at least forget them like my brothers. For them, their fears are material, and are not likely to come to pass in the form they were shown (well, except for Donnie's, but I doubt rejection would come that harshly from April). My fears, they haunt me every single moment of my life._

_I do realize that everyone fears failure to some extent. But I fear it far more than most others. I am the leader, and if I fail, then my brothers, the people I love with all my heart, will die. I cannot fail. It is not acceptable. I can't lose my brothers. And so I fear failure the way I do, the intensity that I do. Failure is practically the equivalent of death for me._

_As for being alone, that's not as easy to nail down._

_I love my family more than anything else. They are my entire life. Without them, I don't think I could live. Or if I did, I would be a hollow shell, walking listlessly through life. They are my heart, my strength, my very soul. To be apart from them, to be all alone, forgotten and tossed away . . . it feels like a fate worse than death._

_My fears are linked, in a way. My fear of failing my brothers could lead to my fear of being alone. If I fail my brothers, and cause them to die, my father would surely, and rightfully, disown me. April and Casey wouldn't want anything to do with me if I caused the deaths of their best friends. Those are the only friendly souls I know, who willing interact with me on a regular basis. Without them, I would truly be alone._

_These fears loom over me every single moment. Even before the hallucinated visions, they already were weighing heavy on my mind, already haunting my dreams. The fear dug only enhanced my fears, adding fuel to the fire._

_I fear when our day is over, when I am forced to retire to my room. If I even try to sleep, I am bombarded by the dreams, and I wake up not even an hour later. The past couple nights, I have forsaken even an attempt at sleep. I can feel fatigue weighing my eyelids down, but I refuse to give in. I know that I will have to sleep eventually, and it is cowardly not to accept the nightmares, and continue to sleep, but the dreams completely fill my mind with a terror like no other. I cannot run from these visions, I cannot fight them. All I can do to get rid of them is to either overcome the fear completely (not happening), or to avoid sleep. So, cowardly as it is, I will stay awake until I am forced to sleep. Maybe then, I will be so exhausted my mind will be too tired to torture me._

_My writing is becoming sloppy, barely readable, as I scribble at light speed. I never knew how much I could vent about my fears. Probably because I have never had the chance to vent to anything or anyone before. I should quit now before I tear the page or scrawl over the lines._

_I hope to find peace in my slumber soon. It is not healthy for fear to rule my life like this, this I know, but I have no choice right now._

_Sayonara for now,_

_Leonardo_


	5. Small

**2003 verse.**

_Sometimes, I feel small._

_It's not like I am, not by any stretch of the imagination. I am 5 feet tall and a good 180 pounds of muscle and bone. I am not small._

_Yet, when I'm near my brother Raphael, a few inches taller and 30 pounds heavier, I feel tiny._

_Raph is bulky, large and tough, like a tank, forcing everyone and everything out of his path with his sheer strength. I, on the other hand, am thin, flexible and light, moving quickly around obstacles and taking care of them swiftly and silently._

_So, whenever Raph and I go toe-to-toe, I feel small. When we fight, and Raphael towers over me, it's hard not to feel fear. Raph is more than a tank, he is a cannonball, one that smashed through everything, regardless of aim. One day, I think, one day it won't be Purple Dragons he'll obliterate, not Foot he'll crush, it will be me. I won't be quick enough to dodge the blows, I won't be able to hide in the shadows, Raph will find me, and in his fury, hurt me._

_I've never said anything of the sort aloud. It sounds crazy, even to me. Being afraid of my own little brother? Ridiculous. Stupid. But Raph isn't little, he's a giant, and one day, I feel like I'm going to be crushed under foot._

_I'm being stupid, I know Raph would never intentionally hurt me, but . . . When I stare him down, craning my neck to meet his eyes and seeing the pure rage that festers inside . . . I'm afraid._

_I'm tiny, insignificant, a butterfly battling a hurricane. Futile. Nothing I can do will ever stop Raphael, not completely._

_Sayonara,_

_Leonardo_


End file.
